ICU
by J S Arnold
Summary: When Bonnie is hurt bad enough that she ends up in Intensive Care, the only thing Damon can think about is about her and killing whoever has done this. Can he find the guilty party in time, or will that person or group see to his death before he can?
1. The Phone Call

**I C U**

The Phone Call

His hands were fixed in a clawed shape as he watched as the woman neared the place where he waited. He hadn't intended her to be his prey and, while she was the perfect type, he presumed that she could not be alone – a woman rarely was out this late at night _alone_. She stumbled over a stray splash of gravel on the pavement, lost her balance, and crumpled to the floor in a heap of legs and arms. The sight made him leave her alone out of pity since she was hardly fair game. He almost left her then, but he was in need and he did not feel like fighting the temptation any more. Damon's drop to the ground below was very quiet.

She had nice legs, he thought, his view from where he was crouched quite imformative. With how she was positioned he could see and assess every inch of her with a predator's eye; he could see now that she had deliciously long legs, a lovely slim waist above her ample butt, large breasts and... he moved closer almost without thinking about it before hand. What was that on the left side of her face, on her cheek? He hadn't seen that kind of mark for centuries, but he recognised it instantly. It was the mark of the hunters, a group of humans he'd sworn had been killed all that time ago – he had even had a hand in slaying them himself.

He was at her side in less time than it took for a blade of glass to shift in the wind. "Any last words, _slayer_?" He was snarling and a spray of his venom landed onto her cheeks. He had no patience for this sort and he hoped that this woman would atleast be smart enough to know what was good for her. If she did not say anything the end would be the same, but she might tell him something he wanted to know – he'd heard of crazier things,

The Slayer shook her mane but not as if to end their conversation; She opened her mouth to tell him something, what he would never know, but no sound came out and her mouth went slack. Damon waited but there was no movement at all from her. He raised one of her eyelids tentively and saw her eyes staring blankly at him: dead eyes. He had seen this before, and he knew that someone somewhere still hand their finger on the trigger for the explosive implant in her skull. She must have been about to tell him something he would want to know. He shrugged and bent his head down to her bare skin. Maybe she could not help him in the way she meant to, maybe he hadn't gone out ro feed from her, but he was thirst for more than Gin and Tonic.

A strange, deteched, surge of fear rushed through him from his chest to the rest of him and Damon's head shot up reflexively; What captured and held his attention was not the prospect of fresh blood, the kind that still had life, but the incredible intimacy of the feeling – as if he had a reason to be concerned. He stood and took his phone from his pocket, pressing random keys to wake it from standby, irritated. What was wrong with it? The battery must be dead. Damn phone. Damn technology. He could communicate via his mind but Stefan could not. Damn Stefan. Damn his weakness, his uselessness.

Aware that someone may be watching him now, he only took enough blood from the prone body to ease the worst of the hunger but not enough that the pleasure overcame him and dulled his senses. He needed them to be razor sharp, like his teeth had grown to be at the excitement, even with how practiced he was at feeding after all this time. He had to be more careful than this with Vampire Hunters in town. He slipped his victim's phone out of her pocket and checked it for life, thinking that it was a decent model and he might keep it. He dialled Stefan's number with decisive button presses, accustomising himself to the new shape easily.

He stood from where he had be crouched close to the dirt floor and dialled Elena, a little ashamed of how he could remember her number even when he hadn't thought to use it in so long, and waited for her to pick up. The phone rang a total of three times before he had any response, and it came from an automated voice; "This is the voice messege service," a flat, computer generated voice intoned, "Leave your voice-messege after the tone." BEEP.

"Elena!" He barked into the handset, using his most commanding tone.

"Damon," Elena answered after a few moments, taking the call at long last, breathing hard into the phone, "Is Bonnie—"

"Is Bonnie with you?" he asked hastily, interrupting her with the exact same question. Voicing the same question that had been echoing in his mind. It contined to bounce around his head in the hushed silence he had in reponce. "I take that as a no."

He slammed the phone down on the ground with enough strength that the plastic cracked and the rocks beneath the ground cut into his the skin of his nuckles. Where the hell could she be if she was not with him or Elena?

Meredith answered the phone when he called her, his last resort, and she promised find him as fast as she could. When she found him leaning against the tree he had been perched in before, her eyes were as keen as he had ever seen them and she was trembling. Panic rolled off her in waves that spread like water. "Bonnie has been taken in to hospital. She's hurt real bad, Damon, she's in the ICU..."

**TBC**


	2. I See You

**I C U**

2

I See You

They were almost at the edge of the forest, after she had agreed, reluctantly, to follow his orders to the letter, when Meredith heard a rustle behind her in the shadows. She put a hand on Damon's shoulder, saw him flinch at the sudden contact, and darted her eyes to the shadows. He hadn't noticed anything as they went through the forest because his mind was conjuring images of what he might find when they arrived at the hospital, but he scolded himself for that inattention. He knew that Bonnie would never forgive him if something happened to her friend, no matter how he apologised. The shock was starting to ebb now, and little by little he was starting to feel things again. Whatever had happened to Bonnie must have been his fault, anything troublesome generally was.

When they got to Damon's flashy sports car, Meredith quickly moved between him and the vehicle after having heard the doors unlock. There was no way she was going to let him drive when he was so irrate; she was human, mostly, and she would probably die if he crashed the car into a tree. She held out her hand for the keys and waited with an eyebrow raised as if to ask, D_o you think I'm stupid_?

She wondered what her family would think if she was discovered, dead, in a Vampire's car, and felt the first twinges of guilt; After her grandfather was killed by a vampire she had sworn to do whatever was neccessary to make sure their family was avenged. If she hadn't known Damon enough to know he valued Bonnie's life, and her's by default, she would never get into a car with him. She met his gaze with equal determination. _She _was going to drive.

"Move it, Meredith." He spat in warning, pointedly ignoring her outstretched hand in favour of reaching past her for the door she was leaning against. He found the door's handle but was reluctant to damage the tall, dark girl if it was not neccessary. What would his dear Bonnie think if one of her best friends ended up in hospital—in the bed next to her?

_If she was even conscious_, the inciped voice in his mind whispered, _if she doesn't die before you get to her, if she thinks you don't love her..._ he shook the thoughts away like they were raindrops on his jacket. He loved her and he will be there for her – if her supposed friend would let him drive.

He growled when instead of moving she leant back harder, making his clear that if he wished to get into the car he would have to man-handle her – and he knew he could not do that, he just couldn't believe that she had the gall to slow him down. He crowded her with his body, pressing her back against the car door and tried to intimidate into giving him the damn keys and getting out of his way.

"If I let you drive, Damon, you'll get us both killed." she told him, not budging an inch. Damon growled and punched a dent in the side of the car, leaving the left passenger-side door mangled. He did not care about the car's wealfare at all in this moment. He knew she was right, he just did not want admit this.

She manouvred the car neatly into a space directly opposite the hospital entrance and waited until Damon shut the door behind him before getting out onto the greying tarmac herself. He strode silently beside her when they entered but she could feel his presence in the air around her. She glanced sideways at him and saw the tendons in his jaw twitch. Damon casually strolled up to the reception desk in the adjoining room and met the receptionists eyes.

"I need you to give me two visitor's badges." he said shortly, the emerald green fire burning in his eyes burning brighter and brighter as he spoke. She was middle-aged and plump, and her eye-lashes were so obviously false that Damon had to wonder why she bothered with them at all. No one liked a desperate woman, and this woman had it leaking from her like the blood he could already taste in his mouth. He took the badges with a nod, but he could see that she had noticed his eyes darkening with the hunger building inside. "C'mon," he told Meredith briskly, throwing the badge at her in his haste to remove himself from the temptation to bite any one of the ill human's bustling around them.

They got to the ward Bonnie was in just as a couple of doctors left her bedside, one holding a clipboard with scribbled notes in red ink. Even to Damon, their expressions were unreadable but he hoped that he could see a glimmer of hope in the shorter man's eyes. Damon approached them feeling out of his element, his voice quivering for the first time in centuries, as he spoke, "What happened?"

"We don't know yet, the details on the incident are still unclear. She was found in the car park outside the Salvatore mansion... know the place?" But he could not answer the question. A hazy form was hovering beside Bonnie's prone body, and the sight of it took his breath away.

"Bonnie..." Meredith murmered, her eyes wide, her mouth partly open in surprise, confirming that this was not just another figment of his imagination. Bonnie was standing just a little away from them, but she did not react to the sound of her name. She continued to stare mornfully down at herself, silent and as still as a statue. Damon unthinkingly reached out for her and touched Bonnie's shoulder, suprised when his hand met solid flesh instead of vapor.

She turned to them then, a hollow blackness where her eyes should be, and his name echoed in the space around him. It was _her_ voice, the sweet sound that he had missed, and though he could not tell the direction of her gaze, he looked lovingly back at her.

**TBC**


	3. The Burning

**ICU**

3

The burning

They stared at each other, both seemingly oblivious to the hospital personnel bustling around them, for what felt like the longest time he had ever known. Damon clutched the end of the metal bed as if it were the only thing keeping him standing and gazed unblinkingly at the vision before him, unsure if this _ghost_, _spirit_, whatever it was meant anything. He glanced at Bonnie's vital signs on the monitor to the right of the bed and saw that her heart was beating in an uncertain rhythm. The vision of her beside the bed began to cry silent tears but the droplets never left her cheeks. It did not matter that she could not talk, it was plain to see that she cried because she did not want to die but could feel herself slipping away.

"Oh, Bonnie..." Meredith whispered from beside him at the foot of the bed. For the first time in his presence, the mysterious, serene, unbreakable Meredith had her own fat tears leaking from her too bright eyes. Never before in her life had she imagined seeing anyone in this state, and especially not one of her closest friends. Elena should be here too, she thought, and dug around in her bag for her phone. She remembered that mobiles had to be used outside the ward, after a middle-aged nurse made a point of reminding her, and left to take the call somewhere else. Damon wondered if she would tell Elena that shecould see Bonnie's spirit, or whether she would be smart and keep their shared visions between just the two of them.

On any other occasion he would have listened in on the phone call, but he could not help focusing instead on the rhythm of the beeps the machine made opposite where he sat beside the bed. His larger hand swallowed Bonnie's smaller one completely as he held it, stroking his thumb across it's surface. Her fingers were cold and he gently clutched them, hoping that the little body heat he provided would somehow make her feel more like she was alive than dead; right now, with her temperature bordering on hypothermia, she seemed as full of vitality as a corpse. Why was he thinking that? There was no use getting poetic about her state – she was alive, she was not dead, and that was all that mattered in the world.

"Can you speak?" he asked the spirit tentatively, aware that anyone passing outside the drawn curtains around the bed would think he was either speaking to himself or speaking to the comatose girl as if he expected her to reply. To any of these people it would seem ridiculous to expect any answer from her at all, but he saw the hazy image of her shake her head mutely. He hadn't heard of a ghost that could interact with the living, but he knew somehow that this slight movement was in response to what he had asked. His own hand gripped her's and her voice came to him across whatever veil separated the living-dead from the lingering-dead. _Damon_, her voice said in his head, _help me... _there was pause in which everything, even the machines, were silent. _Damon, I can't wake myself up_...

He released Bonnie's hand and scooted his chair right up against the wall. Could Bonnie really have communicated with him from the other side, if that was where she was? Was it even possible? He continued to ponder this until Meredith reappeared, seemingly guilty of something. As soon as he saw her face he knew what she had done, but he not make himself confront her about this. He had to think while he still could with a clear mind. She had said she could not wake up, but what exactly did she mean by that? Did she need him to wake her by kissing her – like in the fairytale? She was his princess but this was real-life and the spell she was under was more real than anything in a book meant for children.

The vague impression of her standing beside the bed looked up suddenly—past him—and Damon reflexively looked back. The two doctors that had been here before were back.

"Hello," the tall doctor said, stretching out a hand as if to shake Damon's, "I am Doctor Everett, and this is my colleague Doctor Williams..." the doctor's gaze flicked back and forth between Bonnie and Damon, "What relation are you to the patient?"

If he thought that Damon was dumb enough to tell him he was her brother he was wrong. He knew that they looked nothing alike, and yet part of him wondered if he admitted such that it would harder for the hospital to force him to leave. "Partner," he said matter-of-factly, "boyfriend." The doctors seemed to have a silent conversation.

"Does she have family we could contact?"

"No." he replied automatically, "They're all dead – very sad, really." He knew they would rather tell her family, but if there was anything important he should know concerning the health of his princess he wanted to know it.

"Well, if that's the case – that you're her closest kin..."

He nodded firmly.

"There's a chance that she won't ever wake up." The words tolled in Damon's head relentlessly without one of them sinking in. "There may come time when the only choice left is to turn off the life support..." the doctor's voice broke of in a gasp as Damon reared up, his mind full of the things he could not accept.

"No!" he roared, his fangs creeping past his lips to be visible. There was a rustling behind the drawn curtains, as if someone else would come in at any moment, but he only knew that the human deserved to die for what he had just suggested. No, he was not going to let them snuff her out like a candle whose wick had begun to make them restless.

"Damon, you can't do this here," Meredith said urgently, taking his shoulder in an act braver than she could have imagined.

He knew she was right, but the burning desire to kill these people who dared even think such thoughts was relentless in it's pull towards the dark-side. Maybe not here, the evil within him relented, but these two had to live somewhere and he would find them. "Will she survive?" he asked one of the doctors, using all the compulsion he could wield.

"Odds aren't good..." the doctor murmured disjointedly, his mind easy to reach with only a little power. "... bleeding in the brain..."

Damon returned his eyes to Bonnie and wondered if she could live with the consequences of the choice he was about to make.

**TBC**


	4. Posion Love

**ICU**

4

Poison Love

Damon leant over and lowered himself onto her carefully, positioning the self-inflicted wound at his neck over her mouth and willing it to stay ripe long enough for his poisonous blood to infect her's. This would look strange to anyone if they should see what was happening, but that was what Meredith was here for, standing guard in case any of the nurses think to ruin things by coming into the partitioned area around the bed.. She hadn't known it before now, but he had been prepared for this course of action from the moment he learnt Bonnie had been taken into hospital. Even though vampirism was on the opposite end of the spectrum as magic, he had no other choice but to hope that the special qualities of his blood would at least help her on the path to recovery – and save her life. There was no doubt in his mind that she would die without his intervention—and soon.

Her skin was such a chalky pale that she could easily be dead, which was another reason why it was imperitive that Meredith stand guard. If a nurse or doctor came in and saw her looking visibly lifeless, cold and white, they would cause trouble that neither of them needed. He was fairly confident that this would work, that his own blood would flow easily when he slit a vein and poured it's contents into her mouth, but he hadn't done anything like this before. This should not change her from human to vampire, but he had never tried this without atleast meaning to change the victim's state and he could only hope that his _will _to keep her alive would decide her fate, not the stuff he was feeding her; he feared that just an infusion of his blood would take her heritage away, but his fear for her survival was greater even than this.

"Damon; stop." Meredith told him in a low voice, and she moved with almost inhuman speed to stand outside the curtained space. Her heart was beating wildly in her chest as she intercepted the Dr's Everette and Williams before they could see Damon bleeding. She did not have to be phsycic to foresee their reaction to what was happening just beyond the closed curtains. The doctors, instead of stopping as she had expected, pushed past her with barely veiled ruthlessness.

He waited until Bonnie had swallowed the blood before he responded, and when he did he found himself confronted by the doctors. Their expressions were suspiciously blank when he first saw them, but their body language was not as unclear. He could see the muscles contract even before the instruction from their brains had even made it to their legs. He dodged their attempts at collapsing his legs and instead delivered a punch to the side of Williams' head. The man fell to the floor of course, but Everette was at beside where Bonnie lay, oblivious to the ghostly image of the girl not an inch away from him.

"What do you want?" he asked, but not as if he wanted to know.

"Her power," Williams said, his brow raised, his posture relaxed, as if he did not know with whom he was speaking. "Do you have any idea how _long_ we've been looking for _her_ power?" The man actually had the gall to look at _Damon_ as if he were stupid. If he wanted to provoke him to cruelty he succeeded, but Damon had to wonder if the man really had any idea at all what he was getting

himself into.

Damon stood tall, still tense, but ready to strike. He did not know who these two humans were, but he knew they had no concept of who he was either. They thought that their badges pretected them from violence, that their profession as doctors made them sacred, but Damon hadn't been in need of a doctor in a very, very long time. His upperlip pulled back to reveal his glistening fangs and he snarled.

"Damon..." Meredith's voice was like a knife through butter with how it sliced through the terrible intensity holding his body tightly. He turned to her and saw that Bonnie's forehead was slick with sweat and her breathing was harsh as it was ripped from her throat. "What's happening? Is she turning?"

His own heart stilled in his chest for what felt like forever as he considered this. He'd been concentrating so hard on _not _turning her, stealing her magic, that it could have happened quite accidently. Though he hadn't bitten and drunk from her, there was always the chance of their blood mingling some other way. He had poured his own tainted blood into her, that he was sure of, but had any of her's seeped into his system via the gash he had inflicted on himself? He would hate himself, as Bonnie surly would, forever.

"Turning?" Everette asked, his eyes symltaneously widening and narrowing. He and the other doctor had stumbled across an opportunity. If he could persuade this creature to be a test subject for him... he smiled at what that would do for his career – what greatness it could bring to his reputation as a doctor.

"Vampires... they're all vampires!" Williams supplied.

"_Yes_..." Damon hissed, his voice like burning, glowing, hissing, metal, hard and brilliant. "_and I will bite both of you if you won't help get us out of here, you hear me?"_

Meredith watched this exchange with barely veiled horror. She'd throught she'd seen Damon at his worst before, but anything before did not compare to this. There was something primal about him that hadn't been there before in all the times she had seen him. Vampire's were animals after all, like all human's were; he was like a big cat protecting his mate. Bonnie was as limp in his arms when he lifted her from the narrow hospital bed, like a doll, and she wondered how Damon would get her past security. Surly _someone _would notice him strolling out of the hospital with her?

There was the sound of a few nurses squawking in protest at something he did and of a window breaking.

**TBC**


	5. Lightening

**ICU**

5

Lightening

Her eyes were closed as they proceeded to free fall from the seventh level of the hospital, though she could feel the cool rush of wind whipping her cheeks with velosity of the descent – uncomfortable, but so much better now that Damon held her in his arms. The atomosphere had been smothering in the ward, with eyes watching her every move, but out here the air was fresh and bitterly cold. There would not have been a sound when he landed, at last, on the ground outside the entrance of the building if the broken glass hadn't crunched beneath his feet; his body seemed to adapt to impact on the ground seemlessly and his knees did not buckle one bit even with her extra weight. The moment that her feet touched the floor he his hands ran all over her body, reassuring himself that this she was not just a vague spirit and was solid as the ground he stood on.

"Wrap your legs around my waist, darling." he whispered in her ear.

"Is it over?" Bonnie asked, her eyelids scruched together as if it made any difference. She managed to manouvre herself around him like he had told her

Her limp body felt so light in his arms that he could barely feel her weight at all. It should have been impossible, even if you knew the world as it really was, for her to look so weak after only an hour, at the most, of being ill. His blood should have healed her completely but there was still something wrong with her, he could tell. She ought to at least be awake thanks to his blood, and yet not one flicker of conscious thought could be sensed from her mind. He used the Power to probe her thoughts but he saw was the blank darkness of the dead. No matter what, he would stand by the decision he had made, no matter what happened now. "We better get out of here, someone in that ward has probably called 911 already..."

Already, he could hear a police car's sirens in the distance, coming closer with each second that he stood here clutching the girl. He had to take her somewhere safe, but not back to the mansion, where Stefan and Elena would be waiting. He did not need to hear anything that they said in relation to his latest stunt – he knew what they would say. They would ask him why, _why_ take her from the hospital where she could be taken care of properly, and he was unsure if he would be able to take such questions without becoming violent. He would probably kill Elena, maybe not accidentally, and then he and his brother would be back to hating each other, which would inconvenience him. "I'll get us out of here, have no fear, princess." He kissed her forehead before manouvering her so she clutched his back instead of his front. She fit sso snugly against him that it seemed as if their bodies had been designed for just this purpose. He could not move as fast with her additional weight as he might have if he were running alone but he was still faster than a human eye could follow.

Bonnie felt her stomach clench painfully despite his assurance and she moaned. Even if Damon was confident they could overcome whatever came their way, which he seemed to be, she was afraid for both their lives.

"Do you trust me not to let go?" Damon asked against her ear-lobe, bringing her back from the pit of black thoughts she had been drowning in.

The words came out before she thought, "Yes, of course I do..." Her only warning as to what he meant was his sharp intake of breath a moment before. Her enhanced mind processed the rush of images as they flew past; one window, another, another another, another, and then they flew past the broken one that still had shards of glass in the corners – all that was remaining. The rest was scattered hapshazardly on the tarmac pavement below. She did not feel guilty about the vandalism, she did not have time to, because Damon landed gracefully on the roof top and let go of her. She fell onto her knees and felt the rough ground graze them.

"Put your hands on your head." a gruff voice demanded from the hospital exit and there was the distinctive click of a shot-gun reloading. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Damon's smile fall and his hands come to rest on the top of his dark head. The gruff voice belonged to a man dressed in a navy blue uniform, a gun in a holster at his side. As far as Bonnie could tell, he was as human as they came, but she would not bet her life on it. Even the strongest of vampires could sheild his or her power level from others. For all he knew, this man could be vampire too. "You better come with me, sonny." he said in a marginley lighter tone.

Damon jumped down from the raised edge of the rooftop and tried to make sure Bonnie was hidden from the old man's view. The concealment was only part due to the danger of her being caught too; Bonnie wasn't tough like Elena, but neither was she as hard-hearted as Elena. He would not allow her to whitness what he was going to do to this man who stumbled apon them while just doing his job as security – some things could not be forgiven. "You haven't seen my friend and I, have you?" he asked the man.

He scrunched his eyes, confused, but replied clearly, "But I have... I do..."

"You _don't_ see us."

"But..."

Damon rushed the man, quicker than lightening, and snapped the man's back in two. The body crumpled to the floor and Damon kicked it as if it were a piece of rubbish. He had no regrets about killing this one; he had obviously been immune to the Powers and there for a reliability. He had to protect his own interests first.

"Damon..." Bonnie's horrified whimper came clearly to him.

"C'mon," he said, gathering her up in his arms, "It's time to get you home."

"Damon..." she said again.

"Yes..." he thought she would call him a monster.

"Let's get out of here."

He smiled as a rumble sounded overhead.

The End


	6. AN

The continuation of this story is called Blood Witch


End file.
